Time To Go
by BrightBlueSkies
Summary: Time doesn't heal all wounds. Sometimes, it makes them worse. Sometimes you need an old friend to lend you a helping hand.


Things were progressing smoothly. After all the work he had put into this, it had better be moving smoothly or he'd break something.

Dexter relaxed himself. There was no point getting himself worked up. Society was rebuilding, people were learning, he wasn't as alone as he had been before. It would be okay. Of course, there were still issues and obstacles.

The once vibrant land and sky were still sickly in color, no grass to freshen the air and no clouds to dot the sky. Well, no clouds that weren't really smog made by one of Mandark's factories.

He didn't know he'd miss the white clouds so much. He wasn't really one for meteorology, except for the occasional exploit into the field when he was young and adventurous. He had never really taken the time to see the shapes the clouds supposedly made, the whales and fish that swam the deep blue of the atmosphere.

He regrets that, he knows now. He regrets a lot of things. Even though he knows in his mind's eye that regret won't help anybody, won't help him, he can't help it. He'd go back in time and relive it all if there wasn't already a past version of himself waiting there.

Dexter sighs. There's no point to standing there and thinking, not when there was still work to be done. Plants to plant, a land to clean and cultivate. He leaves his temporary lab, located in his old childhood one, and into the makeshift tent that he calls home. Over his childhood home, of course. It was nice to be home, he thought, even if home was buried and all his family were either dead or missing.

He might be depressed. Dexter is a genius, he can read himself, and he thinks there might be a small, a really _tiny_, one might call it _minuscule_, chance that he has crippling depression. Years of torture and loneliness can do that to a person, he thinks.

He was hesitant to admit it though. Because in all his wisdom, all his knowledge and power, he isn't sure what to do about it. Anti-depressants sounded like good idea. At least until he could find a cure for depression and extreme loneliness. He'd need to look into what made them, first. And that would take spare time he honestly didn't have time for.

Too busy, too busy. Too little, too much.

He settled on his desk, a sturdy old thing made from scrap metal from below. Lined with wire and parts, he really liked this desk. It had a nice retro aesthetic that reminded him of better times. He was zoning out again. He needed to work on the bots that would go around and make the soil livable again. It was full of toxins and poison, only half of which was put there on purpose.

Cure the ground, plant the grass, plant the trees, clone some animals and he'd be a fraction of the way to returning the world to what it once was. He pulled out a large, pale piece of paper and lay it flat on the desk. Fully prepared to design these robots, Dexter just stared.

Anytime now. He'd get started. Make a new future. Make a better tomorrow. He just needed to put the pencil to the paper and make a quick sketch and he'd be done. Then he'd need to build it, and work out any potential kinks in the wiring, like there'd be any, and then set it loose. Then he'd need to make at least fifty more, and if he was going to do that, why not just make a machine that could build the machines for him, better yet- make a machine that could sketch it out and do all the planning for him because he just wasn't in the mood.

He felt tired. If he were to do all that, he'd still need to draw out the blueprints. The future started with him, after all. He didn't feel like the future started with him. He just felt lonely.

He was unused to loneliness in the past. As a child and teenager, he craved his personal time. And it was only by the insistence of others that he had any social interaction at all.

Oh, how things change.

A red light on his desk blared at him. He blinked at it. What could that be? He wasn't scheduled to have any issues until at least next week. The red light meant there was a problem with some of the machinery downstairs, the stuff he had found important enough to revive. Perhaps an animal? No, there weren't much of those left to get into the lab. An old Mandark drone was more likely.

He scowled. Picking up his wrench, a familiar and assuring weight in his hand, he slipped back down to the lab prepared to break heads.

In the dark of the lab, there wasn't much to see. No indication of tampering, or rogue drones. Maybe it was just a technical error, then. These machines were years old, probably just a frayed wire he missed in his haste. Better get to fixing it. It was better than staring at a blank page for a couple hours.

Relaxing his shoulders, Dexter made his way through the old lab when he heard it;

A giggle.

A distinctive, obnoxious giggle he'd know anywhere.

He paused, a million things running through his head.

"Dee Dee?" He called apprehensively into the darkness. Was his old mind playing tricks on him? No, preposterous. Lonely he might be, but crazy he would never be. He was as sharp as ever, he told himself.

Getting no response from the old structures, he turned a corner. He was barreled into by a high speed projectile of pink and laughter. Getting knocked to his back was unpleasant, but it was drowned out by the pure surprise that, yes, his sister was here. A cursory glance told him all he needed to know. It was past-Dee Dee. All young and chipper, it was not the person he was searching for. Standing up, taking Dee Dee with him, he set the young girl on the ground. She was grinning up at him, like he'd seen her do a thousand times before, albeit from a very different angle.

"Who're you? What happened to the lab? Are those Dexter's gloves? He's not going to be happy to know that you're wearing them!" She said, bouncing on her heels.

"I _am_ Dexter." He said simply, for lack of anything better to say.

She looked at him suspiciously. Scratching her chin, she then shook her head.

"Nah, you don't seem like Dexter." She said, "You're like, too tall."

Dexter blinked. That was not what he was expecting, but then again he wasn't expecting much. It was Dee Dee, after all.

"Well, I had a growth spurt." He lied, rather petulantly. He had used a growth serum, but she didn't need to know that.

"Nope!" She said, made a face at him, and then tried to run off into the lab once more. Dexter, in years past, would have tried to stop her to prevent the destruction of his precious lab. Dexter now stopped her, rather easily too, because he didn't want her messing with the rotting, rusting materials that were likely contaminated after so many years of misuse. Who knew what kind of experiments he had back there that had gone bad after a few decades? Not him. He didn't remember.

He picked her up by the armpits and held her at eye level. She squirmed in his hold.

"How did you get here?" He asked her seriously. She shrugged.

"Just did." She said, "Wow you're strong." She used one of her free hands to pat his forearm. He was strong, he thought proudly too himself. But that was besides the point.

"Dee Dee, I know I've told you a million times before, but this time," He looked at her pointedly, hoping that being an adult the message would finally get across, "I would really appreciate it if you got out of my laboratory."

She gasped.

"You _ARE_ Dexter!" She pried her arms from his fingers and nearly strangled him with an intense hug.

"Wow, Dexter, you inherited Dad's baldness, huh?" She said, "What did you do to yourself to get you so big? Did it have something to do with the lab? Is that why this place is a mess? _Ohmygosh_ DEXTER." Dee Dee slapped her hands on his cheeks and looked at him seriously. "Did you turn yourself into an adult without me?"

Dexter, despite himself, laughed. This was so like her, he could barely imagine her as anything else at this age. She had somehow matured when she got older, but when she was twelve? Hyperactive ball of chaos. He predicted if her energy was harnessed for even a moment it could power humanity for the rest of time.

Despite the havoc she wrought, Dexter had missed his sister. Despite even this, he should probably still find a way to get her out of the lab, and then back to her original time.

Shifting his older sister-younger?-he set her on his shoulders, piggy back style. She squealed.

"Weee! Where are we going, Dexter?" She asked.

"On an adventure." He said, knowing fully well there wasn't much 'adventure' in the world anymore. He'd take her to one of the settlements, let her do her thing there and not where the radioactive and vital machines were. Speaking of which, maybe he should get around to separating those...

And then there was the whole time travel problem. He had deactivated the clock, so she couldn't have come from there. But maybe she did, she was Dee Dee after all. He was more thinking along the lines of a temporal rift, or a reset in time physics. Resets were usually harmless, except for those who traveled time often. He had given himself immunity to them when he was young, time-vaccines and all that. But Dee Dee wouldn't have had that, he hadn't even thought to give her one.

He'd send her home with one just in case.

They reached his tent and he opened it up to the outside world. Dee Dee was silent on his back, which was suspicious.

"Are we... on Mars?" She asked at last. He understood that question. The land around them did look alien in a lot of respects, though Dexter had gotten used to calling the barren ground 'Earth'.

"Not quite, Dee Dee." He said quietly. "This is Earth, just not the time your familiar with."

"Then... where are we? Why is the lab here?" She asked, looking concerned from atop his shoulders.

"We are... Well. You're in the future, Dee Dee." He said, choosing not to explicitly state that they were standing on the ruins of their hometown. If she figured it out on her own, which she might, he'd have to move a bit quicker.

She was silent once more. Something he overlooked quite often when he was young was how... contemplative she was. Sort of. Maybe that was the wrong phrasing but the meaning remained. She loved nature, and love, and poetry and all that stuff Dexter had thought was girly or dumb and had ignored. She cherished nature, he knew, and she must have thought the land being in such a state was terrible.

"The school is gone." She whispered. Dexter mentally face palmed.

"Yes." He said instead of giving her a look.

"And the mall." She added. Dexter nodded. He began walking to his hovercraft. They were wasting daylight. He could grab a few things that could send her back in time, drop them in the vehicle and end up at the settlement in no time.

"And the store and the parking lot?" She was asking now, not stating. She knew where she was. If the lab was here, she knew this empty space must have been home. Dexter kept walking. Maybe he should have risked sending her home back in the lab.

"Yes." Dexter said, voice hoarser than he intended it to be. Where was she going with this?

"What about my clubhouse? Or the shed behind the mini-mart? Are those gone too?" She asked, sounding almost desperate. Dexter, voice lost, nodded.

"I thought the future was supposed to be cool." She said quietly, "This is just... sad. Scary. It's both!"

Dexter had nothing to say to that. He supposed that growing up with technology beyond your wildest dreams would give someone high expectations for the future. It sure had for him. Instead, the world had given him pain and loneliness. And probably depression.

Dexter found his voice. He did not like the waver in her tone. It did not fit her boundless energy, her happy image he had in his mind.

"Things... did not turn out as planned, yes. But I am going to change that. The future isn't over yet, not as long as I'm here to do something about it." He said, earnestly.

And like a switch had been flipped, Dee Dee was happy again.

"Okay!" She said, cheery.

Dexter didn't question it. Dee Dee was an enigma he had tried to understand before, and all attempts had failed.

He plopped her down on the hover craft, a large thing with a single chair where the driver would sit. There were boxes sitting in the back, packed full of valuable resources. He almost felt bad putting Dee Dee on top of them, but he wasn't too worried. She seemed calm enough.

He frowned at the thought, mentally retracting it. Best not to jinx himself. He picked her back up, and she let him, and set her on his shoulder. She giggled from her new vantage point, and with things packed up and ready to go, he drove off to the nearest settlement.

She was quiet the whole way there. Her weight on his shoulder kept shifting as she glanced around. He did not see her face for the fact he was driving. Her hand was on his head, for balance he thought. Or maybe she was marveling at his bald head. The thought made him scowl.

They arrived at the settlement much the same way; without much talking. Which was odd for Dee Dee, at any age. She had always been a chatter box.

The settlement itself was doing much better than it had been a month prior. No longer were they living in dirt hovels, they had tents set up a system to get food and water. Amazing what a little common sense could do. He checked up on this settlement often, like he did for all of them, or at least tried to. He was busy. He was busy and it wasn't because he had forgotten how to talk to people.

It wasn't.

The hovercraft stopped, and Dexter set her down once more. As soon as she touched the ground, her hand was in his and she was tugging him along.

"It's like a big campsite!" She said.

"Dee Dee?" Dexter stopped, and instead of letting go of his hand and running off, or running off with his glove, she stopped with him.

"I need to work on sending you back in time, stay nearby, okay?" He said slowly. She nodded seriously, giving him a mock salute.

"Aye aye, captain!" She said. Dexter didn't stop to think about her willingness. He just accepted it.

Dexter began to get to work, ignoring the stares he was getting from the people who lived at the settlement. Usually his appearance meant some great change for them, some added necessity or luxury. Not this time, sadly.

The only thing he had brought was a chaos maker. He waited for the inevitable sound of Dee Dee's havoc. Only it didn't come. Pulling his head out of the box that would soon warp time space, he peered around.

She was sitting right next to him. He blinked. Why hadn't she-?

"You have a lot of scars." She said softly. Dexter was so confused. Only his sister could do this.

"Uh, yea." He said. She reached out and held a soft finger across one of the scars that ran from his right shoulder to his left hip. Though she couldn't see that. He nudged her hand away. She did not reach out and touch it again.

"It happens." He said. She scrutinized him. Dexter had the strangest urge to hide.

"What am I like in the future?" She asked, and Dexter internally cringed. He externally cringed too. His whole body cringed, not liking the question. Throughout the years, of fighting and hiding and surviving, he had looked for his sister. To no avail. And he was certain Mandark must have searched too. All the knowledge in the world and neither of them could find her.

It was only irrational gut feelings that told Dexter she was alive at all, as his future self had neglected to say anything about it.

Dee Dee could survive anything, even the end of the world.

"I don't know." He said, honestly.

"That's okay." She said, and she hugged him, much gentler this time. "I'm probably off in space or something."

Now there was an idea. He hadn't even considered it before, as Dee Dee wouldn't have had the ability to space travel on her own. But then again, maybe she did. He wouldn't know until he found her.

"I'm your big sister, Dexter. Even if you're bigger than me." She said.

"Oh...Kay?" He said. Maybe he _was_ going crazy. He used to be able to understand his sister. A little bit.

"You seem so sad." She said.

Dexter was silent in response.

"And it's my job to make sure you don't stay that way for too long." She said.

He began to work on the machine, returning his wrench to the bolt in the device.

"But I don't really know how to do that, Dexter." She said.

The bolt popped off. He picked it up and screwed it in somewhere else with his bare hand.

"But I know that you're smart and you can figure stuff out on your own, so I think you can do it." She hugged him just a little tighter.

The time machine still needed wiring, but it was almost done.

"But I need you to promise that you'll get better, okay?"

He turned and looked at his sister. She was looking at him with big eyes, big hopeful, trusting eyes, and he couldn't refuse.

"Okay, Dee Dee." He said, throat raw, "I promise."

He focused all his energy into tying the wires together. A trick he learned that would last a while when he couldn't weld. The metal needed to connect, the plastic re-wrapped over it. He didn't hear Dee Dee leave. She just sat next him, humming.

Had she always been this way? Had he never noticed? Or was this a special case? Maybe she was sick. Or, Dexter thought after a moment, he was sick. Or she thought he was. He didn't feel sick, he didn't have time for that.

He was fine, and if he wasn't, he'd get better. Like he promised.

The time machine was built in record time, and he set it upright. He'd dismantle it after he sent her back. It was best not to have multiple time machines running at once, and if there was one that she had traveled through, he'd need to find it before messing with the time stream once more. It was risky enough sending her back through a new portal, but if there was any complications he'd deal with it.

He flipped the switch, and the machine hummed to life.

"Time to go, Dee Dee." He said to her. She approached the machine, looked at it once and then flung her arms around his shoulders. Her arms couldn't wrap around at all, but he returned the hug.

"Hey, don't tell past-me this, but I missed you." Dexter said to his sister. He slipped a note to his past self telling him to give Dee Dee the reset-vaccine into her pocket. She snorted and giggled the way only she could do, and when he dropped her in the machine she waved goodbye before it whisked her away to whatever time she left from.

And Dexter, surrounded by people, was left alone once more. He stood from where head been kneeling and took a breath. That had been quite the distraction. He needed to work on his blueprints, he'd stalled long enough. He took a final look around the settlement. People were still moving about, but there was many eyes trained on him. Curious. Sad. Expectant. He gave them a little wave, and walked back to his hovercraft.

He realized why he hadn't wanted to draw out his blueprints before. It wasn't lack of creativity like he thought, but more likely the lack of people to show his work to. The loneliness that had shied away when Dee Dee appeared.

Maybe he could bring back his blueprints and work on them at the settlement, Dexter though to himself.


End file.
